Time Travel: Volume 1! Starting from a Small Mountain Village

Long Lifan listened in the courtyard for a while, but didn't go next door. The scene Lin Yue described was just too... She was afraid that if she listened too much, she wouldn't be able to eat later.

Meanwhile, at the other educated youth settlement, many male educated youths saw that three female educated youths had already prepared a meal and were eating leisurely, but there was no food for them.

Their stomachs were growling with hunger because of diarrhea. In the past, they could just wait for food after work, but now they had to wait even longer.

They all turned their gazes to Chen Wei, their eyes filled with hatred. Now, they were helpless. It was their own fault for not standing up for Xiang Fang yesterday; now, even if they wanted to partner with the female educated youth, she certainly wouldn't agree.

"You educated youth, you can't always be the ones cooking first!" Chen Hongjie was also dejected at not getting a ready-made meal. Wanting to cause some trouble for the female educated youth, he spoke up.

"Chen, the educated youth, is right!"

But Xiang Fang nodded happily. Now that they were doing things separately, if one of them cooked, the other would just have to wait.

She had considered this issue as early as when the idea of ​​separating was first proposed. So she wasn't surprised by Chen Hongjie's words. She said, "It's not feasible for us to cook first every day. How about this, one person cooks one day each. But the person cooking first can't work for more than half an hour. If they do, they have to cook later."

Xiang Fang was afraid that the male educated youth would deliberately cause trouble, such as deliberately delaying the cooking process. Don't let Chen Hongjie's usual respectable appearance fool you; he might actually have such ulterior motives.

These days, they only cook for three people a day, which takes about half an hour. As for whether there are enough male educated youth, that's not her concern, since they used to cook for ten people in about half an hour.

"Fine, fine!"

Chen Hongjie was surprised that Xiang Fang not only agreed to his request but also set conditions. The key point was that these conditions were quite reasonable, leaving him speechless.

After lunch, Long Lifan prepared to go to the brigade leader to get a letter of introduction.

"Little Long, what brings you here?" Lin Guodong remained calm and spoke gently as Long came to see him.

In the past, what he feared most was when educated youth came to him. It was either because they had a conflict with one of them and needed him to intervene and uphold justice, or because they had a dispute that needed him to resolve.

Moreover, most of the issues were between the educated youth and the commune members.

After a long period of observation, Long Zhiqing did not seem like a troublemaker. Of course, her heroic deeds some time ago also made her the person the commune members dared not mess with the most.

Let alone the other commune members, even he himself is a little intimidated by Long Zhiqing now. This is someone who can make Chen Desheng suffer. Just think, every time Lin Guodong meets Chen Desheng, he gets teased by him.

But even someone like Chen Desheng fell victim to Long Zhiqing, didn't he?

"I need to go to Pingwu County, so I'm here to find the captain's letter of introduction from Kaifeng!"

Long Lifan directly stated her purpose for coming to see the captain.

"You're going to the county town?" Lin Guodong was taken aback, then asked again, "Long Zhiqing, is there something you need to do in the county town?"

"Captain, you must have seen the sickle I used when you were harvesting!"

Upon hearing this, Lin Guodong realized he had not only seen it before, but had also used it himself. It was not only time-saving and labor-saving, but also wouldn't hurt his arm. He thought to himself: "I have to say, things from big cities are really useful; even a sickle is better than the ones from the countryside."

"What does this have to do with you going to the county town?" Lin Guodong asked in a low voice.

"Actually, this kind of sickle is not available anywhere else. I saw it in a book and asked my father to make it for me at the Shanghai Machinery Factory."

"At the time, I didn't expect it to have such an effect. So I thought about whether I could promote this kind of sickle so that everyone could use it."

"I'm planning to go to the county machinery factory to talk to their director about making this new type of sickle."

After Long Lifan finished speaking, Lin Guodong pondered for a long time. He hadn't expected that Long, the educated youth, would have such awareness. But when he thought about going to the county machinery factory, he hesitated.

Despite being the brigade leader, the highest-ranking official he had ever met was someone from the commune. The county machinery factory was a place Long Zhiqing could enter at will; he'd heard that people in large state-owned factories like that were incredibly arrogant, and ordinary people simply couldn't get in.

“Xiao Long, I’m not trying to discourage you,” Lin Guodong said after thinking for a moment. “People like us wouldn’t even be allowed to enter the house.”

"It's alright, I've already found someone!" Long Lifan smiled slightly and recounted the story of Uncle Qiu's visit yesterday, also mentioning his identity.

"So that's who came to see you!" Lin Guodong had heard yesterday that someone had ridden a bicycle into the village, and he thought it was some cadre from higher up coming to see them, which made him wait for several hours at the brigade headquarters for nothing yesterday.

Actually, he hated it when people from higher up came to visit. They always had to entertain them, since they were officials from above. But their village was so poor that there was practically no money left in the brigade's accounts.

"Okay, I'll drive it for you!" Lin Guodong's worries lessened considerably when he heard that Long Zhiqing knew someone. However, he still said, "How about I go with you tomorrow? I need to go to the commune to get some fertilizer."

Long Lifan naturally had no objections and readily accepted the captain's suggestion.

"What? You're going to the county town tomorrow!"

Long Lifan returned to the courtyard and told Hu Lili and Jiang Nian'an about the arrangements for tomorrow. Hu Lili also wanted to go. She had been in the countryside for two months and had only been to the commune a few times, but how could the commune compare to the county town?

She looked at Long Lifan with envy, her eyes filled with a pitiful and helpless pleading.

"Don't look at me like that. I have something important to do." Long Lifan couldn't stand Hu Lili's pitiful look any longer, and then continued, "Even if you want to ask the captain for a letter of introduction, he probably won't do it without a suitable reason."

"Alright, then you'd better bring back some good stuff from the county town! Let me see what I'm missing..." He kept muttering to himself, listing dozens of things in total.

Most of the items were pastries or candies only available in the county town, which left Long Lifan speechless. She was there to run errands, not to buy goods.

The next day, when Hu Lili and Jiang Nian'an got up, Long Lifan had already set off. Usually, the three of them would go out together, but today, without Long Lifan, Hu Lili felt something was missing.

Jiang Nian'an is not a talkative person. Even though they are relatively familiar with each other, she only answers when asked a question and rarely takes the initiative to start a conversation.

After saying a few words, Hu Lili felt it was pointless and stopped talking.

Meanwhile, Long Lifan had already traveled to the commune in an oxcart with the brigade leader. Lin Guodong was still somewhat uneasy along the way. But seeing Long Lifan's calm and composed demeanor, he felt a little more at ease.

"Old Chen, Long Zhiqing and I are going to the county town. Why don't you go back first and come back this afternoon?" Lin Guodong said to Old Chen.

There are buses from the commune to the county seat, four times a day, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. It takes about an hour to get from the commune to the county seat, so the round trip takes more than two hours.

Going to the county town would take an unknown amount of time, and he estimated that it would take several hours to get back, so he didn't want Old Man Chen to wait there idly.

Old Chen nodded, his face expressionless. He'd only come with the brigade leader to haul fertilizer, and it just so happened that Long, the educated youth, needed to go to the county town on business.

They followed Lin Guodong and the others to a bus stop. Luckily, they arrived early, and the bus arrived after a few minutes. They each paid two cents for the fare and found seats towards the back.

I still remember that last time they traveled from Pingwu County to the commune by tractor, it was a bumpy ride. This time, the bus they took was in much better condition than the tractor trip.